Remmy
by Grasspaw
Summary: Why is Remus sitting in his room all alone, staring at an old photograph? Why is he almost crying? And why does he hate the name "Remmy" so much?


**This is just my take on how Remus got bitten. I was bored, and I haven't written anything in a while, so here it is! This takes place in his third year at Hogwarts. Oh yeah, and sorry for the crappy ending, but it's late and I'm tired and good night and merry Christmas and I don't care if you're offended by that. Going to sleep now... Dang, it's hot here. Even in Hawaii in December at night! Crazy, the temperature on a tropical island. Oh yes, I do live here. I am not on vacation. I own nothing.**

Remus Lupin was sitting on the floor at the foot of his bed, leaning against his trunk, which was open. Everything inside was not neat and tidy, as it usually was, but rather everything looked as though someone had searched in a great hurry, which someone had. The thirteen year old boy had carelessly shoved things out of he way until he found what he was looking for. He had disappeared from class and his three best friends, James Potter, Sirius Black, and Peter Pettigrew, after their Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson, which had been about werewolves. But Remus was not thinking about the lesson now.

While it was true that it was the lesson that had made him think of this in the first place, that lesson was in the back of his mind. He was staring intently at a small photograph. In it, two boys were sitting on the living room carpet, an older one and a younger one. They both looked extraordinarily like Remus. Well, the younger one was Remus. It was Remus when he was two years old, and the older one... the older one was his brother, Romulus. He had been five when the picture was taken.

Remus stared at the photo intently. Romulus was tickling him, and he was only half-heartedly attempting to push him off. They were both laughing their heads off, although they made no noise.

But now Remus was willing himself not to cry.

He reached out his index finger and gently stroked the picture. It was old; it had been taken over ten years ago, and it was definitely falling apart, despite his many cleaning and preserving spells. It was yellow and crumbling around the edges. But he didn't care. It was the only way he could see his brother ever again.

Just then, the door opened with a loud creaking noise. James Potter stuck his messy haired head in. "Remus? You in here?"

Remus just grunted in reply. This had been done in an attempt to let James know he was not in the mood to talk, but it failed. James merely grinned.

"Aw, did you just grunt at me? I do believe Sirius and I are rubbing off on you, Remmy."

"Don't call me that." Remus sounded more snappish than usual, but James decided that this would just make him more fun to bother.

"Aww... Why not, Remmy? I thou-" But he did not get to finish the sentence.

Remus leapt to his feet, dropping the picture as his hands clenched into fists. "I said don't call me that!" he shouted, his face bright red. Then, just as suddenly, he paled and sat back down again. "Sorry," he muttered.

James looked shocked. "What was all that about?"

Remus just shook his head and looked away. He could feel the familiar tightening of his throat, and he feared that if he talked, he would start to cry. Oh, he didn't usually have a problem with it. In his first year, and his second yar when his friends abandoned him because of his lycanthropy, he had cried into his pillow. But he would never cry in front of anybody if he could help it. In fact, he could only think of one or two times when that had happened at school.

James walked over towards him and awkwardly sat down next to his werewolf pal. Remus was looking at the picture again. Instead of questioning Remus about what had just happened, he asked about the picture. "Who're they?" he asked curiously with a hint of caution to his voice.

Remus sighed and closed his eyes, leaning his head back. "Do you know why I hate being called that?"

"No," James said slowly.

"Because my brother used to call me Remmy."

"Wait, back up. You have a brother?" He had always assumed Remus was an only child.

"_Had _a brother, James," Remus replied softly. "_Had _a brother."

"You don't anymore?"

"No." Remus usually would have been annoyed at James stupidity and utter tactlessness, but he was too sad to bother about it.

"What happened?"

"We were playing in the forest one day. I was three and he was six. His name was Romulus, by the way. He called me Remmy, and I called him Rommy. It was getting dark, but we had stayed out late before, and we weren't too far from our house. I remember looking up and seeing... seeing... _a full moon," _he whispered.

"I thought it was pretty, and I told him so. He looked up. He jumped, and he grabbed my hand and we started running. I remember that I was crying because we left my favorite toys back there. But he was ignoring me and talking really fast. He said that Daddy had said some mean things to a man at work, and the man said he would come and hurt someone, and the man was very mean, a monster. A _werewolf."_

Remus let out a humorless laugh. "Well, that shut me up. I was scared. A werewolf? That was a very naughty person who turned into a big doggy, wasn't it?" He laughed again, and James flinched, for the noise was mocking and bitter. "Anyways, we kept running. We weren't really that far from the house, but he had to go slow enough that I could keep up, and it was dark. We kept tripping or taking a wrong rurn. And then we heard it."

Remus opened his eyes and looked forward, staring at something that was not there. He continued in a hoarse, strangled whisper, "We heard some leaves rustling. Romulus stopped running, and I started to cry. He clapped a hand over my mouth, but I was still making roo much noise. I stopped when he pressed down harder. I remember looking to my left while Rommy looked right, and I saw... eyes. But they weren't human eyes. Oh, no. The were round and yellow, and they belonged to a wolf."

Remus passed a hand over his own golden brown eyes and kept on with the story, "I whimpered and tried to get closer to my brother. He looked at me, and then I guess he saw the eyes too. He froze, and I cried some more." A dark look passed over his face. "I will never forgive myself for that. Would that I had stayed silent, none of that might have happened."

He took a deep breath. "The noise set it off. It growled and leaped out of the bushes.I screamed and started running, and it decided that a moving target was more interesting... it chased me instead of Romulus. Romulus grabbed a rock and threw it at the wolf, to stop it from biting me. But it was too late." Without thinking about it, Remus rubbed his left shoulder musingly, still with a distant, horrified look in his eyes.

"As soon as the rock hit it, the werewolf turned and attacked my brother. But it kept biting him..." Remus had turned incredibly pale now. James wondered if he had ever told anyone else story, but mostly he just wondered what that must have felt like.

"I ran then," Remus whispered. "I went home as fast as I could, but it was too late. By the time my parents got there, the wolf was gone and my brother was... he was..." Remus seemed unable to continue, and he layed his head down on his knees, shaking with dry, silent sobs. His brother was dead, he was a werewolf, and it was all his fault.


End file.
